For immediate release: October 26, 2001

For more information contact:

Judy Goplin - Program Assistant
Office Phone: 715/983-5668
Fax: 715/983-2138
jgoplin@wisc.edu

Secretaries of Ag, DNR Tour Bragger Discovery Farm, View Monitoring Stations

Independence ­– On Friday the Secretary of the Department of Ag, Trade and Consumer Protection, Jim Harsdorf, and Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources, Darrell Bazzell, were on hand to tour the Bragger Family Farm near Independence and view the new monitoring stations put in place for research in the Discovery Farms program.

The Bragger Farm is home to Wisconsin's first Discovery Farm. Discovery Farms, the foundation of the Wisconsin Ag Stewardship Initiative (WASI), is a producer-driven initiative working to assure a healthy environment and a healthy farm economy through real-world application of environmental research. Discovery Farms is an innovative research effort made possible through cooperation by UW-Extension, the UW-System and UW-Madison's College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS). Along with Discovery Farms, WASI is comprised of the Pioneer Farm at UW-Platteville and component research projects in the UW-System. DATCP and DNR play important roles in Discovery Farms, providing funding and guidance.

Discovery Farms looks at farming operations representative of their industry and evaluates what impact the operation is having on the environment before any management changes are made or suggested, so the effectiveness of those changes can be measured. Then Discovery Farms will be evaluating suggested best management practices (BMPs) with the expectation of eventually sharing with producers a list of BMPs for example, that are effective and will actually be profitable, a list of effective BMPs that will be expensive to implement, and a list of BMPs that are not effective. As the Discovery Farms program progresses it will positively effect the regulatory process, helping create more effective regulations that have farm economics, as well as the environment in mind. Core Discovery Farms will be involved an anticipated 5 to 7 years, and receive $5,000 annual stipends. Core Discovery Farms are invited into the program as funding allows.

The Bragger Farm is home to a 180-cow dairy and is operated by Joe and Dan Bragger and supports their two families, along with their mother, Hildegard. With the dairy, the Braggers feed out 80 to 100 steers each year, operate a trout-rearing pond in conjunction with DNR and the local sportsman's club; and Joe's wife, Noel, raises 32,000 pullets annually for Golden Plump. The Braggers run about 670 acres, mostly corn and alfalfa.

The Bragger's farm presents a unique surface water-monitoring situation, as their farm is forked by two streams, both beginning on their farm. A flume has been constructed in each of the streams to monitor surface water quality. Besides surface water monitoring at Bragger's, Discovery Farms will be researching farm odor control, nutrient crediting and comparing no-till with conventional tillage practices.

The Braggers work hard to minimize their farm's impact on and protect the environment. They practice no-till cropping methods, plant fields in contour strips, have incorporated grass waterways, built earthen dams, implemented stream bank rip rapping and they follow a manure management plan.

For more information about this or other Discovery Farms research projects contact the Discovery Farms office in Pigeon Falls, at 715-983-5668 or www.discoveryfarms.org .

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